This invention relates to beam steered lasers and, more particularly, to a beam steered laser used in a battlefield environment to designate one of a plurality of targets of opportunity.
The success of lasers on the battlefield is well established. Examples of this include not only laser guided bombs, but also shells and missiles. While successful, the weapons systems in which these munitions are used have certain drawbacks. For example, each munition has an associated sighting system whose sole function is to direct the munition to a target. Thus, for example, a laser designator illuminates a target at a fixed laser frequency which is coded for security purposes. Back scatter, or forward scatter, of the illuminating laser frequency, off the target, is received decoded, and used as a beacon to guide the munition to the target.
Present sighting systems typically require that the target be illuminated throughout the flight of the munition to the target. Further, lasers used in the pointing system are mechanically boresighted to the center of a field of view of the system. As a result, laser designation of a target may be considered a sequential operation. That is, if more than one target is present in the field of view, they must be sequentially dealt with one at a time. Also, the designator sight is used for guidance only during a specified munition guidance interval. These factors result in a) a long exposure time of the weapon system and its user and, in turn, the risk to each; and, b) an inoperable designator surveillance system during the guidance interval.
Various steps have been undertaken to ameliorate these drawbacks. For example, multiple target designation systems have been developed. Such a system is disclosed in U. S. Pat. No. 5,042,743, which is assigned to the same assignee as the present application. In addition, recent advances in laser technology have produced a solid state, beam steerable laser. If such a laser is employed in the weapons system, it is no longer necessary to limit the laser to the center of the field of view of the pointing system. If there is no boresighting requirement, then the system can be made a great deal more flexible. Now, the laser can be beam steered to any location within the field of view, this being done at rates exceeding a few kilohertz. As a result, a much more flexible sighting and guidance system is now possible which provides a safer and more effective weapons system for use on the battlefield.